At the end of last season, Donovan Mitchell had almost nothing to prove. He’d done all that on the court, leading the fifth-seed Utah Jazz in points as a rookie and winning a first round playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. At times, he even outplayed established superstars like Russell Westbrook and Paul George.
Fast forward about eight months and a lot of that clout had dried up. In his sophomore campaign, Mitchell was struggling. In his first 33 games, his shooting numbers had dropped almost through the floor (41.